Creating Uniquely Named Items

[Atwood]

I wanted to make some items for my game that would each have a unique name attached to them to memorialize my fallen dogs and had a couple questions about how that would work. I've already got a 'Carved dog figure' item I modded in, but I'd like to 'inscribe' them to make things like 'Carved dog figure - Erkki', 'Carved dog figure - Salme', and so on, changing the associated name for each deceased doggo. My questions are:

1. If the name of a modded item is changed on its diy recipe (e.g. changing the resulting item's name from 'Carved dog - Erkki' to 'Carved dog - Salme'), do items previously made with the old name still show up as normal or will they cease to exist/become unusable/lose their image because their recipe is gone? Do they retain the values set at the time of their creation even after that specific recipe ceases to exist?

2. If they do need to keep the specific recipe for each uniquely named item to work, does commenting each unique recipe out when done (so it won't continue to show up on the menu) allow them to still function or would this also break them the same as removing the recipe entirely?

3. If the recipe does need to be kept and can't be commented out, can it be moved to a hidden menu by means of creating a submenu with no corresponding menudef key? For example, if I put in a Names submenu in the diy but didn't add anything to the menudef to make that submenu actually viewable outside of the diy file, and then moved each uniquely named item's recipe there when I was done with it, would that let the item keep working normally?

I'm hoping I can just change the item name in the recipe freely without worrying about breaking stuff but I wanted to check before I actually edited anything in case I ended up ruining the carved dogs my character has already made. I'm using 3.30 if that makes a difference at all.

[PALU]

As far as I understand created items do not have any remaining ties to their recipes. Thus, a save game where a mod has been used is still usable by Sami for (non mod related) fault finding.
Thus, you ought to be able to change your statuette recipe for every dead dog, but you probably have to reload UrW for the new version to take effect.
I'd suggest just trying it out: Make a copy of your save, start your character, make a statuette, save, change the recipe, start again, make a new statuette, save and remove the recipe altogether (or comment it out), load the save and check whether both versions exist in parallel. Then you can discard the save and restore the copy (and restore the recipe before restarting).

[koteko]

In my experience you don't even have to restart the game: just modify the file (if it's only the dog name, just change the name) then open the game menu for crafting and it's there. I think the game reloads the modifiable game files very often, eg at every action.

[Privateer]

1) The "named" item that is created "exists" in the world you have. the ability to make it again (keep task alive) is not needed.
2) Answered above
3) Answered above

"I'm hoping I can just change the item name in the recipe freely without worrying about breaking stuff"
This should not be an issue.

[Atwood]

Awesome! ^^ Thanks for the help, everyone - that should make things easier with a couple other projects I had in mind as well.